On Thursday afternoon I picked up Lindsay from the Burbank airport. We went to Maria & Clayton’s and Megan and Elaine came over and we had a fantastic BBQ! After that we hung out and talked for hours. The next day, I took Lindsay to brunch at the Artisan Cheese Gallery, then to Griffith Observatory and down to the Venice canals, where we ran into Ashton Kutcher’s movie shoot. After that, Maria made a Korean food feast and Megan brought over two kinds of cheesecake.
Saturday Maria, Megan, Lindsay and I met up for breakfast at Megan’s. Then we met Elaine on the lot for a private tour of Warner Bros. We got to look around the museum and get our photos taken with the sorting hat, and then Elaine showed us around the backlot. Clayton, Maria and I took Lindsay to Santa Monica to show here the pier and we got Xooro and watched the beach bunnies and the high waves and the billows of smoke from the wildfires. On the way back to Burbank we took a detour and had budae chigae in Koreatown. Later that night we met up again, plus Meghan and Megan, for a birthday party in Silver Lake. The CoolHaus truck happened to be parked down the street so we got some awesome ice cream sandwiches! Megan and Maria rolled back to Burbank early and ran into an actor at the karaoke bar around the corner from their building.
Sunday Maria, Clayton, Lindsay, Meghan and I went to Zuma beach. The waves were high again – good for body surfing – and Lindsay and I made a sand sculpture of a rose. On the way home we hit the Polo outlet at Camarillo then got stuff to make dinner. I caught up on ‘True Blood’ and we watched the new one and the new ‘Mad Men’.
A fantastic day! Clayton and Maria paid for half of my pass as a thank you, and I had a great first trip to Disneyland. I got a ‘1st Visit’ button, and we had Mickey-shaped ice cream and rode it seems like EVERY ride – and more than once! I can’t wait to go back 🙂
More bonesawing! We shot this promo for ‘Dr. Bonesaw’ during one day at the Psychic Bunny offices. Asa and Pat plan to finance the movie entirely via death purchases. That is, people (at least 30, no more than 100) will pay them money for an awesome horror movie death. Fantastic idea, right?
The shoot was a LOT of fun – lots of fake blood squirting everywhere, great gross shots…we started the day thinking the shots we were setting up were so gross, but that was before we bonesawed Laurel’s neck or Pat brought out the offal from the butcher shop.
Unfortunately I didn’t get any shots of the awesome practical titles or the hallway dolly shot with the actress, Barbara, since I was directly participating in them (either helping to position letters or pulling focus from the barrel).
After we wrapped and cleaned up (blood was EVERYWHERE. How do murderers hope to cover up ANYTHING??) we had some beers, played some foosball, and then watched the dailies. After that, we went back to Pat and Asa’s for more wrap partying, which lasted until about 5am.
Thursday, July 2: fly into O’Hare at about 7:30. Take the blue line to meet Cecile and Matt at California, then we go to el Nandu for Argentine steak! Delicious steak and empanadas, plus super-dangerous sangria. Afterwards, Cecile and I hit City North for the 11pm screening of ‘Public Enemies’.
Friday, July 3: wake up early and take photos of Cecile peeling the tongue. Spend the afternoon/evening/night with good friends eating exceptional food. Cecile’s tongue pie is the best meat pie I’ve ever had! And putting red pepper flakes on the pineapple before grilling it is a fantastic idea – sweet and spicy!
We played the Battlestar Galactica game (I was finally a Cylon! I was finally on the winning team!) and then a few other board games – Crazy Cat Lady, Monster Squad – before Andy and Virgina had to go. then Jon, Cecile and I watched ‘Ghostbusters’ as a drinking game and pigged out grade-school-sleepover style on junk food.
Saturday, July 4: a rainy and kind of gloomy day, but we made the most of it. In the morning, Trent made breakfast for some of his friends and I got to meet some more new people who are aces with me since they let me share their food. Cecile and I left for Nora and Kate’s apartment as it was starting to sprinkle, and were very nearly there when we were sidetracked by the bargain store called ‘Pay Half’. We went in for the duration of the harder rain and came away with some dresses and cute purses – all pretty cheap.
Kate and Nora put on a great BBQ – delicious brats from Paulina Meat Market, pretzel buns, Mustard Girl spicy mustard (???), quinoa salad, cucumber salad, potato salad, sauerkraut, fresh watermelon and chili-chocolate brownies with what I think was a fleur de sel sprinkled icing. DELICIOUS! Oh, also some really good summery ales. Which we’d all had too much of, because when we sat down to play VCR Clue, we were all totally confused for about the first half hour.
The hour grew late, and I wanted to stop by Lindsay’s BBQ, so Cecile stayed to watch a movie with Nora and Kate, and I headed to the Ukrainian Village. Lindsay was throwing a cookout for her friend’s birthday so I got to see the tail end – grilled meats, dessert and present-opening. Most of the guests left for the California Clipper, and I stayed to talk some more to Lindsay. Outside, we stopped to watch some fireworks on the other side of the church across the street, and marveled at their proximity and the sheer number of fireworks displays happening in the neighborhood. As we drove around we saw they were EVERYWHERE! Every street in Chicago had a fireworks display going off – the whole city was celebrating.
Back and Cecile’s, I texted Katie to see about another BBQ and crazy fireworks display, but then started to feel the effects of three straight days of eating more food, richer food, and meatier food than I normally do, so I watched ‘Firefly’ on Hulu and did Kakuro until I fell asleep.
Sunday, July 5: Cecile left in the morning to go to Bikram yoga, and I got ready to meet Mark for breakfast. Our first choice restaurant was closed, but we went to our old standby, the Flying Saucer. Then, Mark came back to Cecile’s with me, and while I changed into kayaking clothes, visited with Lindsay who had come to pick me up.
Lindsay and I drove to Erehwon to get kayaking gloves for me, but they were closed, so we checked out the new big Whole Foods instead. Then we met Katie R. at the kayaking place and got started. We kayaked for two and a half hours and went six miles round trip. The view of the city from the river is fantastic, and we even got to hear bits of the architecture tour as those boats passed us. Kayaking is fun, but definitely work – my shoulders and hands will be complaining tomorrow, I’m sure! We also all got pretty wet, which was horrifying considering how dirty the Chicago River is. Every time a drop of water splashed into my mouth or, worse, my eye I felt a little panicky that maybe my face was going to rot off.
After kayaking we were all pretty hungry, so we went to Pockets for a quick bite. Lindsay dropped me off and I (thank god) showered and made plans for dinner. Cecile and I met Jon, Katie and one of her friends at Crust. I had a flight of two shots of their infused vodkas and they were really good, as was the arrabiata pizza and apple tart. We sat outside on the back patio and the night was perfect.
The next week I spent at home in the Quad Cities, where I went to eat at the usual places (Shanghai, La Flama) and saw a few movies. My mom and I also went to the Quad City Botanical Center. I got some great photos of the flowers and plentiful (and ginormous) bumblebees. I did the Bix at 6 and pushed myself too hard (again) but got to take a day off from activity before going to the John Deere Classic for the last two days of the tournament. Mom and I walked the course, following my Dad’s group (he’s a scorekeeper) around.
On Tuesday Mom drove me back to Chicago and I had dinner at Irazu with Lindsay and Scott, whom I hadn’t seen in years. After that I met Cecile at City North and we saw the midnight screening of Harry Potter. The next day I flew out – I good-length-ed and well-balanced vacation!
I drove up to Oakland on Friday and got there by the afternoon. After lazing about for awhile, Eric and I went to Whole Foods and got stuff to make dinner. Deluxe burgers, watermelon beer, a salad that we forgot about but ate a few days later.
Saturday morning we got up early and drove to San Rafael, home of the Marin County Civic Center. The Marin Center was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and was used as a shooting location for the movie ‘Gattaca’. It’s a pretty cool place, and there was an art fair going on by the lake too, but the admission was sort of outrageous so we didn’t go in. After San Rafael we drove to Sausalito and walked around the little downtown area. We got fish and chips and vegetarian chili fries from the fish and chips restaurant attached to Lappert’s and ate by the water. Lunch was good, and it was clear enough to see San Francisco and the Bay Bridge.
Sausalito is nice and all, but even better is…The Bay Model! It is a two-football-field sized scale model of the San Francisco Bay. And it is AMAZING!! It’s huge and educational and was used in an episode of ‘Mythbusters’ to test an Alcatraz escape story. I highly recommend The Bay Model.
A quick trip over the Golden Gate and we headed over to Dolores Park to wait for this bicycle music festival to arrive. We got ice cream at Bi-Rite then walked across the street to the park. The park was packed and made for good people watching, but I fell asleep for about half an hour in the sun. When I woke up the band still hadn’t showed, so Eric and I decided to walk around a bit.
We walked up to the top of Kite Hill which is probably the windiest place on earth, then walked back to the park in time to catch some people setting up a makeshift slip ‘n slide. They had a giant roll of plastic sheeting and a few gallon jugs of water/KY/whatever that they were throwing all over the plastic and people were standing around in speedos and bikinis. One guy went down it – got about 1/5 of the way and then hit a hidden bump in the ground with his chest. The slip ‘n sliders dispersed soon thereafter.
We drove back to the East Bay on the lookout for a GameCube controller for a new game Eric got in the mail. The GameStop was in Temescal and I couldn’t help but notice Bakesale Betty was right there…so we got fried chicken sandwiches for dinner. SO GOOD! And huge. I can’t believe I finished it!
Sunday morning we got up really early so we could go to the Exploratorium before it opened and secure slots for the Tactile Dome. The Tactile Dome is this…dome…where it’s completely dark and you feel your way around. I’ve been trying to get into this place for, what? Four years? So by god, it was going to happen this time. We got to the Exploratorium an hour before it opened and had plenty of time to wander around the Palace of Fine Arts and call our dads to wish them a Happy Fathers’ Day.
The Exploratorium was totally cool! Everything is hands-on and education and fun. We got to go through the Tactile Dome as many times as we wanted and it was super cool and disorienting and great. I think we were at the Exploratorium for at least three hours. Afterwards we went to The Ramp for lunch, which has become infamous due to these unbelievably douchey Palm Pre commercials that mention it.
That night, Emma got back from her parents’ and we went to dinner with her, Dan, Mike and Tiffany. We went to a new place near Eric and Emma’s called The Grand Tavern, which had gotten great reviews on Yelp, so it passed muster for me. It was a fantastic place and everyone left full and happy and maybe a little drunk. We went back to Eric and Emma’s and played Boom Blox until everyone was ready to pass out.
Terry took me on one of her favorite hikes – the La Jolla Valley at Point Mugu State Park. It’s about 7-8 miles long and takes about 3 hours. At the end you get these sweeping views of the ocean. Beautiful! I also got a photo of a bee at work, and a funnelweb spider in her funnelweb.
Ellen gave me the heads up about the Jet Propulsion Lab’s annual open house and I was all over it, as you might imagine. It was like a science fair for adults. I had a great time and can’t wait until next year!
Photos are captioned generously. Here is a brief post about the day.
This was supposed to be a celebration for Terry’s return to gainful employment, but her freelance gig was cancelled at the last minute. It was a perfect day for the park – not hot at all and no lines (except for the X2). We had a lot of fun even though Terry briefly passed out on a rollercoaster. She waited a few hours and rode another and was fine though, so hopefully it was nothing to worry about. We had Johnny Rockets for lunch and Cold Stone in the afternoon. Alex and I rode all of the open rollercoasters in the park, and we all rode the pirate ship twice in a row right after lunch, which may or may not have been a good idea.
Terry, Alex and I hit the Grilled Cheese Invitational and it was glorious. We ate so much and so many kinds of grilled cheese. Sorry there aren’t more photos – I was too busy stuffing my face. Mmmmmmmm.